Most people who can do a little bit of anything are invariably asked to do a little bit of something for someone who can’t. Or a lot of a bit.
In our modern technology-rich age, this means I and many of my “nerdy” and “geeky” friends do a lot of troubleshooting, user support, application support, hardware support, emotional support, laying on of hands, or ritual standing in close proximity to a situation for the sole purpose of solving the insurmountable issue with our mere presence and aura of geekspectability.
The Octos
One such group (and I’ll add more later as appropriate) that is present in my life is referred to collectively as the “Octos”. Older folk, usually within a decade of starting their age with an “8″, usually my grandparents or their peers, parents to the Baby Boomers, who require quite a bit of specialized simple-result support.
Supporting them is not simple. But what I must present to them and make available to them must be simple. Very simple, think http://www.jitterbug.com – technology that is not difficult to puzzle out for people who might not be inclined to learn complex new things but still want some of the advantages of complex new things. Technology (such as the Jitterbug) is starting to keep apace of their needs, usually at a high price. Of course my time isn’t cheap, nor do I measure or charge for the loving melding of the Octos and technology – but I do try to make it easy for them, eventually easy for me, and as inexpensive as reasonable to keep the “easy for each of us” in balance.
Lazy Lizzies and Lazy Larrys
I hope that speaks for itself, but I mean any user with the attention span of a gnat for things that aren’t instantly easy. Have to sort your own recyclables? Too hard. Have to fill out a six page entry form to use a site? Buh-bye. Need to find information by clicking through some senselessly designed Flash site that isn’t searchable? Fugheddaboutit.
I think in some ways we are all Lazy Lizzies and Larrys. I despise flash-only sites – and yet sometimes I will go to the (in my opinion) extraordinary effort to page through the blasted things because it is the only way I can get information from some guy or gal who took one course in Flash and uses it every chance he gets – just because he can. Not because it’s useful, or accessible, or in any way the best way to present the information, but simply because it’s pretty and he can.
And sometimes (I feel) that’s not reason enough to make your users suffer it. (/soapbox)
Unwired or Minimally Wired
Users who are aware of the internet, has occasional access to a computer, is generally aware how to kind of use them, but don’t have a lot of experience using computers or the internet, but are willing to learn if us more-wired folk would slow down and not speak in short cuts.
For example, I’d tell a colleague to “go Google $keywordcombination”, but I’d tell a Minimally Wired person to “use a search engine, such as Google, to look for $keywordA and $keywordB and select a result that leads you to $condition”. I usually meet minimally wired people while I’m out and about, write a short explanation for what we discussed on the back of one of my business cards, and encourage them to contact me if they want more information/help working through the technical difficulty that had us chatting to begin with.